The road to Hell is paved with good intentions. Doesn't matter how nice you were trying to be to something or someone, there's still an excellent chance they'll hate you for what you've done. Because, seriously how dare you try and offer to pay for their drinks? Who do you think you are?!
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Lot of awkward stories coming up.
Reddit user, u/cameronsounds, wanted to hear the awful story when they asked:
What's your "I tried to do a nice thing" (but it ended in disaster) story?
Don't Ever Try To Get To Work Early
GiphyNot as serious as some answers but the other day at work I was supposed to put this box in a storage closet, but I didn't have a key so I was just waiting for my boss to meet me. Another woman came up and asked me if I needed help, I said no, and she told me to get a key from the main office right down the hall. I went and asked for a key thinking if I could go ahead and get it done that it might make things go smoother for my boss.
Well, I tried to open the door and the key snapped in half. With half still stuck in the door. They couldn't get into the closet for about an hour and had to get special tools to get the key out of the door. So, I tried to be nice and get my work done early... ended up breaking a door and making us stay an hour later.
3 Weeks?
I offered an mint to my boss. She got offended thinking I was saying she had bad breath and got really upset with me for like 3 weeks.
Slip n' Knee Injury
Was shoveling snow from my walkway finished it and then did my neighbors as he was old. Finished it and then decided to do the next one too. As I was finishing my right foot slipped forward and I tried to keep from falling. I slid for about 8 feet trying to avoid going down. Blew out something in my knee and it hurt for the next 7 months.
That Ended Just As Bad As It Could Have. Death.
Invited my elderly mom to live with us.
She was widowed and had some emotional health problems. Short version: she got paranoid and started hating us for "controlling her". She moved out, wrote me out of her will, and I never saw her again.
After 15 months she died.
Just Tell People About Dead Birds. Seriously.
When I was a kid I went into my mum's room and found our cat looking up at a small bird chilling on the rim of one of my mum's bags hanging from a cupboard only like a meter away.
I had no idea how that bird got in the room. I panicked and went to try and shoo the bird out do the window before my cat got to it. The bird didn't move when I got close so I picked up the bag it was perched on and tipped it out of the window, at which point the poor bird dropped 2 stories onto the ground.
I stared back, confused as to why it didn't fly off. It turns out it was injured and my mum had put it in the bag for it to heal or something and neglected to tell me. That birds death will forever be on my conscience.
It's JUST Blood. Come On.
I found a guy seizing out on the side of the road in a small town once. it looked like he fell and broke his glasses, he also had some blood running down the side of his head. So I called the ambulance for him because I didn't know what to do.
the next day, a lady at one of my regular stops came up to me and said "why did you call so and so an ambulance yesterday? now he has to pay for it. he's a tough guy and would have been fine, it happens all the time"
it was mid-winter and some random guy was twitching on the street. wtf was I supposed to do? just keep driving?
WTF Is Up With That Counselor?
I was in a summer camp when I was 9 and after lunch, I decided to clean up everyone's trash for them. As I was throwing away the trash, a counselor saw me and yelled at me for throwing away his empty soda can.
He told the other counselors and the adults running the camp that I did it with the intent of just throwing his food away. I cried so much on the car ride home.
Not Your Time, Bro
On a rainy day, I gave a ride to a hitchhiker near campus that looked like a typical university student. (I normally don't pickup hitchhikers, but it was hard to ignore him standing there in the pouring rain.)
I drove beyond where I was headed to get him to his stated destination - a place off the beaten path. But then he would not get out of the car. He just kept staring and telling me that he was "lonely and needed someone to be with."
I finally told him that we were headed to the police station if he didn't get out, and that did the trick. If it hadn't worked, we probably would've come to blows, because I could see he was building up to something.
A Fox Fail
Worked at an arcade prize counter. Summer camp of kids came rolling in. They had tickets for unlimited games but they couldn't get any points for the prize counter, which the counselors failed to tell the kids so we had to keep explaining it. Some of the poor kids were super excited because they had won a jackpot! It was equal parts annoying and heart breaking.
Well, one kid showed up and was devastated. He'd been working all day to get enough points for this little clip-on fox plush. He was inconsolable. I decided to use my own points to get it for him, because I felt like that was a toy I would have liked as a little kid and I'd also probably be equally devastated if I couldn't have it and because I was well and truly annoyed with the counselors at that point. I told him to NOT TELL ANYONE.
He came back later in tears because the counselor confiscated the toy. To have the toy and have it taken away probably felt worse than not getting the toy at all. I felt awful.
Wow....Just....Awful.
GiphyA squirrel was somehow stuck in my parents' fireplace while I was in college. My mom was home by herself and was freaking out. She tried her best to get it out but it kept climbing up the chimney every time she got close. I make it home on Friday afternoon after classes to help out. I find the squirrel curled up in the ashes in the fireplace. I grab it and put it outside and since it was raining there were puddles all around.
The squirrel took two steps into a puddle, had what looked like a seizure and died immediately.
Not Quite The Video-Worthy Product We Were Promised
I stood up for an old woman on the buss and she spent the whole ride yelling at me because SHE IS NOT OLD AND DOES NOT REQUIRE A SEAT!! How dare I think that she can't stand by herself?
Redditor j_breezy_ wanted to discuss what sinister tales cities and towns have to tell, so they asked:
"What’s your small town trying to cover up?"
Secrets, secrets, secrets... all towns have them.
All people have them.
The Land
Fox Death GIF by Animation Domination High-DefGiphy"There's a lively discussion about whether or not to repurpose land from an abandoned cemetery by exhuming those interred there and reburying them elsewhere. A commercial developer wants to build condos on land currently occupied by the cemetery."
Back2Bach
Do It Right The First Time...
"The city attempted to seize land to lay piping down without paying for it or permission, force homeowners to maintain it, and then force the homeowners to pay for the work and a large hook-up fee. It caused a huge ruckus, and the city was forced to go through the proper procedures to buy the land, lay the pipes, and fix and pay for any damages caused by the pipe laying."
"You see most folks in that area of town had septic tanks. The city wanted to charge more people for utilities so basically went around the voters to force the pipes through, claiming the people on the back of the properties wanted to be connected to the city. This wasn’t true and they faced a few dozen lawsuits because they fraudulently condemned septic tanks to force people onto the city line."
"My family ended up helping force the city to negotiate and do things properly. The stupid part of all of this, if they had just done it right the first time, they would have saved millions in labor, experts, and lawsuits and next to nobody would have cared."
Rachel1578
'Red Flagged'
"Not trying to necessarily 'cover it up' but the fire department doesn’t have an engine and the township board has not approved any of the ones that have been submitted to get a 'new' engine (not brand new cause those are expensive but ones that are useable). The board also thinks that the department doesn’t need to have safe gear."
"They’ve also said that the trucks do not need repairs and this has been going on for awhile, which has cause the issue of the engine being 'red flagged' (meaning it had to be taken out of commission). My father in law is the fire chief and my other half is on the department."
Next-Rutabaga-5060
The Mystery
"That the water in an area is clearly causing 'mysterious brain disease' where people just like... suddenly can't walk. I put 'mysterious brain disease' in quotes because a google search will tell you it's cyanobacteria, and the area has a giant plant that is clearly dumping stuff in the water to cause these issues."
"But the entire province's government just shrugged their shoulders and said 'wow that's weird, too bad all the cases have nothing in common!' (They all are from this one area of the world reporting this) and moved on with our lives. Here's the WIKI PAGE because it's big enough news that it gets it's own wiki page I guess: Mysterious Brain Disease"
River_tamm
Wasted
half life tech GIF by Feliks Tomasz KonczakowskiGiphy"Radioactive waste. Port Hope, Ontario. Cameco AKA Eldorado Nuclear (The people who processed the uranium used for the nuclear bombs in WW2) used to bury the waste all over town or send it straight into lake Ontario. Years/billions of dollars later and the problem still isn't solved."
Ro7ard
How many towns are toxic wastelands? It's a disgrace.
Marshed
"I’ve got a few…"
"The Quakers leased a large piece of land to glass makers for centuries. The land is basically in a marsh. As the Industrial Revolution took off, the manufacturing methods caused significant pollution. The large corporations that manufactured there never really updated the methods to comply with EPA."
"The site has been seeping chemicals into the watershed for a very long time. Just up the river is one of the first chemical production sites for DuPont. They dumped directly into the river. The old guys in the area talk about trucking thousands of barrels out of the site and dumping them into lakes, gravel pits, and quarries."
Jamescovey
Eminent Domain...
"Not a small town by any stretch of the imagination, but I live in a poor midsized city bordering a larger city, which has the full spectrum. They keep building stadiums, amusement parks, etc here. The city pulls eminent domain on several square blocks, runs everyone who lives there out, and gives the land to a developer for almost nothing."
"Then they waive all property and sales tax for several decades, longer than the facility will be in use. Almost nobody here votes, the few that do are unaware of the tax waivers, so it keeps going on despite the fact that there's literally no benefit to the city or the city government."
"We have higher taxes than our neighbor, but no public transit, way worse roads, and regular problems with power and water. But the city council and mayor are rich as f**k. I'm sure that's got nothing to do with it."
PM_ME_YOUR_FERNET
True Crime
"This is a sad one to me. There was an older couple here who ran a halfway house for troubled kids who’d recently gotten out of juvie, they fostered a few as well. They were loved in the community, wonderful people."
"One of them had an older brother who was a gangbanger in the nearest big city. During a visit, he snuck his 15 year old younger bro a handgun. Younger bro ended up holding up a local gas station and killed three people."
"One of them was my friend’s cousin."
"The foster parents lost whatever credentials they needed to do what they did, the kids went back into the system, and the giant house has been abandoned since around 2009."
KimBass2
A Dead End
"The fact that it's slowly dying, and has been for the last 10+ years. No amount of downtown renovation on the mom and pop craft shops or new fast food and cheap retail stores can change the fact that all the big industrial companies left town and there has been no attempt to replace them and no job opportunities other than... the fast food, cheap retail stores and mom and pop craft shops."
"This town (the whole county, really) is a dead end. Also, the tap water has WAY too much chlorine and other garbage in it and 9 times out of 10 your laundry will end up getting bleach stains. That's been a complaint for 20 years or more."
ZormkidFrobozz
Good Lord
"About 10 years ago a lot of homeless people disappeared and when the police did the investigation they found out a guy was kidnapping and eating those people. Police found his hideout and found a half eaten body and bones from another person. People don't like to talk about it but everyone knows what happened."
Deb_Mack
Some places have just too many secrets.
Do you have any some town secrets to share? Let us know in the comments below.
